ETHICS

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

As a preface to the account of the Ethical Systems,
and a principle of arrangement, for the better comparing
of them, we shall review in order the questions that
arise in the discussion.

I. First of all is the question as to the ETHICAL
STANDARD. What, in the last resort, is the test,
criterion, umpire, appeal, or Standard, in determining
Right and Wrong? In the concrete language of Paley,
“Why am I obliged to keep my word? The answer
to this is the Theory of Right and Wrong, the essential
part of every Ethical System.”

We may quote the leading answers, as both explaining
and summarizing the chief question of Ethics, and
more especially of Modern Ethics.

1. It is alleged that the arbitrary Will of the
Deity, as expressed in the Bible, is the ultimate
standard. On this view anything thus commanded
is right, whatever be its consequences, or however
it may clash with our sentiments and reasonings.

2. It was maintained by Hobbes, that the Sovereign,
acting under his responsibility to God, is the sole
arbiter of Right and Wrong. As regards Obligatory
Morality, this seems at first sight an identical proposition;
morality is another name for law and sovereignty.
In the view of Hobbes, however, the sovereign should
be a single person, of absolute authority, humanly
irresponsible, and irremoveable; a type of sovereignty
repudiated by civilized nations.

3. It has been held, in various phraseology,
that a certain fitness, suitability, or propriety
in actions, as determined by our Understanding or
Reason, is the ultimate test. “When a man
keeps his word, there is a certain congruity or consistency
between the action and the occasion, between the making
of a promise and its fulfilment; and wherever such
congruity is discernible, the action is right.”
This is the view of Cudworth, Clarke, and Price.
It may be called the Intellectual or Rational theory.

A special and more abstract form of the same theory
is presented in the dictum of Kant—­’act
in such a way that your conduct might be a law to
all beings.’

4. It is contended, that the human mind possesses
an intuition or instinct, whereby we feel or discern
at once the right from the wrong; a view termed the
doctrine of the Moral Sense, or Moral Sentiment.
Besides being supported by numerous theorizers in Ethics,
this is the prevailing and popular doctrine; it underlies
most of the language of moral suasion. The difficulties
attending the stricter interpretation of it have led
to various modes of qualifying and explaining it, as
will afterwards appear. Shaftesbury and Hutcheson
are more especially identified with the enunciation
of this doctrine in its modern aspect.